Further legal defeat for hunt supporters

Pro-hunt campaigners yesterday lost their second high court challenge to the ban on hunting with dogs in England and Wales.

Two senior judges ruled that the ban does not breach either the European convention on human rights, or EU employment and trading laws.

Dismissing the case, Lord Justice May and Mr Justice Moses ruled that the 2004 Hunting Act, which brought in the ban, had "a legitimate aim", was "necessary in a democratic society" and "satisfies the test of proportionality".

The Countryside Alliance is awaiting a final ruling on its first challenge, which argues that the 2004 act is unlawful because the Parliament Act 1947, under which it was forced on to the statute books despite the opposition of the Lords, is not itself a lawful statute.

That claim was thrown out by the high court and the court of appeal, and is awaiting judgment from the House of Lords in the autumn. The ban prohibits deer hunting and hare coursing with dogs, as well as foxhunting.

At a hearing, the alliance argued the ban was ruining the livelihoods of thousands who earned their living from hunting, both in the UK and Europe, and infringed EU trading and employment laws.

Welcoming the court's ruling, the League Against Cruel Sports said: "Foxhunting in Britain is now dead. It is time that its supporters accepted that." John Rolls, the RSPCA's director of animal welfare promotion, said: "The high court has given a very clear and authoritative judgment upholding the hunting ban."

In their ruling yesterday, the judges said: "We consider that there was sufficient material available to the House of Commons for them to conclude that hunting with dogs is cruel."

In any event there was "a reasonable basis" for concluding that "taken as a whole, hunting foxes with dogs causes more suffering than shooting them".

It was "reasonably open to the majority of the democratically elected House of Commons to conclude that this measure was necessary in the democratic society which had elected them".

John Jackson, the chairman of the Countryside Alliance, indicated that the legal battle would continue. "The judges have accepted there is interference with some of the claimants' rights, and that the Hunting Act will have a substantial general adverse effect on the lives of many in the rural community.

"However, the court appears to have proceeded on the assumption that parliament had a legitimate aim and has itself speculated on what that may have been.

"Whether the court is right to have proceeded in this way is plainly a controversial question. We intend to appeal against this decision."